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If CPS can't talk to your kids without a court order, why do they break the law by hounding families and talking to their children without such an order? And why do they hound them at school?

In this case, deciding that there is child abuse because of a Facebook photo is ridiculous, especially in the days of photoshop. Someone was on a crusade.

I'm not sure what the legal justification is, but CPS has a time frame in which they have to make contact with the child on every referral (within 24 hours, I think). If the allegation is child abuse, the policy reason is that it is best to interview the child away from the parents who allegedly abused him/her. Even if they come to your home and you let them in, they are going to want to talk to the child(ren) separately from the parents.

You are right, this should never have been referred to CPS. It's a waste of time and resources that are supposed to go to helping kids who are being abused and neglected, not a kid whose dad is teaching him to hunt.

I agree that she was way out of line. So were the police who went out with her, except who knows what she told them to get them to go out there with her. I wonder how long she's been working there and how much training she received.

She probably wouldn't have gotten far filing for a removal writ and such with family court. There is a lower threshold of proof required in child protection proceedings than in criminal court-it is preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt.

I've never worked on the CPS side, so my clients generally know me to be their foster care worker when I come to their houses. Still, I am always amazed at how many people do let CPS come into their homes and interview their kids. You do not have to cooperate with them until they get the court to issue an order to that effect. Granted, they will try to see your kid at school if they can't get into your house, but you can keep your kids out of school until you get a lawyer.

Maybe she wouldn't have gotten the kid taken away, but she threw a good scare into the parents, and that's still a big "maybe". Remember that she had police with her, and could have made any claim to create an "emergency" which required taking the child, in which case the parents would have had to incur legal costs, time away from work, emotional stress and even a temporary separation to restore their custody of their child and/or their guns. This isn't about protecting children, it's about enforcing leftist orthodoxy through harassment and bullying. She wasn't out of line as far as the left is concerned, she was expanding their power and intimidating opposition. Hopefully, when the police officers, who Moore was able to get personal identifications from, are questioned about this, they will identify the CPS agent, and she will be fired (although I doubt it).

Originally Posted by noonwitch

The police can remove kids in an emergency without a court order, but CPS can't.

That's why she brought the cops. I have no doubt that if she'd found anything that she could have used as a claim of impropriety, she'd have claimed that it was an emergency and had the police remove the kid.

If I was that father I would have asked the cops to force the woman to give me her name, he has a right to it.

That would have been relatively easy, too. "Officer ___________, can you prove that this woman is with Child Protective Services, and not some anti-gun zealot off the street who bamboozled you into coming to my house?"

I just realized how close this is from me. About 30 minutes south actually. It's a town just over the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Carney's Point at one time used to be known as Cocaine Alley because of the amount of drug busts made off the bridge.